Stal vs Shakhtar: player opinions before match

Saturday, April 9, 2016

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The Pitmen shared their take on the first leg against Braga and told us about the preparation for the encounter with Stal

Darijo Srna, Shakhtar midfielder:

- It was a strong game with Braga, with the good result in our favour. 50 percent of the work is done, we have to carry out the same volume of work. It will be hard, but we will fight. We continuously have air trips. We arrived just last night, and today we are flying away. But that’s not the worst thing. We are facing the challenge of making it to the Europa League semi-finals, reaching the Ukrainian Cup final, and we will fight for the championship until the end. I am confident that our team can manage all that. Shakhtar deserve it! We are in a difficult situation, but still continue to fight for trophies in three tournaments; by doing so we have won the sympathy of even more fans. Now we need to focus on the domestic league. Tomorrow we will have a very important match. Of course, Stal will fight desperately, knowing that we have just had a very hard match against Braga. Everyone wants to take points away from Shakhtar. While we, to be honest, don’t quite have any free time even to scrutinize the game Stal - Vorskla, or any other game. Shakhtar have a very busy schedule. But again, for a club like ours, it's very important. People often ask me how I feel knowing that I can set the record in terms of the number of the games I played for Shakhtar. Of course, it will be pleasant. But without our president, without the coach, without my team, the fans, without the people who work at Shakhtar, I would have never done it! And on the day when I break the record, I will say a very big thank you to all of them.

Vyacheslav Shevchuk, Shakhtar defender:

- This championship season is short, but intense. There will be a lot of games, each must be approached responsibly, we should recover and prepare well. I think the game against Stal will be very difficult. They have a lot of experienced players. Besides, everyone gets maximally prepared for Shakhtar. The team are working being fatigued, we need to recover, that’s very difficult. Therefore, Mister can make rotation. Everyone is ready, but I somewhat dropped behind after returning from international duty with a minor injury. I remained following the individual programme, and got ill. For three days the temperature was 39. Most likely, it was a sort of virus. Today is my first training after the illness. Let's see whether I’ll be ready to play against Stal.

Dentinho, Shakhtar midfielder:

- It is never easy to join the performance in the second half, literally at the end of the meeting. But the meeting with Braga was good for us, we managed to win. Therefore, I have only good impressions after this match. We needed to score one more goal, but, unfortunately, on the contrary, we conceded one. We didn’t so much get upset as got angry about ourselves. Braga are a great team with skilled players. I hope, I’m even sure that we are able to make it further. As for the match against Stal, the coach did not say anything about my rotation and possible participation. We have to be very focused, because all the matches of the championship are important to us. We want to advance to the top spot, so we will fight until the end. We need the three points.